


You're Not Dying On Me

by LiteraryFaerie



Category: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alex sings to Darlington because I am a sap, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I just love their dynamic so much, I re-read Ninth House and I had to write something about these two, Missing Scene, They're falling for each other but it's complicated okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteraryFaerie/pseuds/LiteraryFaerie
Summary: “I assure you I’m fine, Stern.”“Bullshit.” Alex didn’t doubt that Darlington would assure her he was fine if he had a knife buried in his chest, right up until the moment he bled out. He was infuriatingly noble like that.
Relationships: Darlington/Alex Stern
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	You're Not Dying On Me

After the way she’d embarrassed herself the last time, Alex was not looking forward to her second Aurelian ritual. Her worries had been misplaced, though. The night was a resounding success, right up until the moment when Darlington keeled over without warning. 

He stumbled and Alex reached for him, a choice she instantly regretted as Darlington’s considerably larger frame pulled them both them off balance. Alex sank to her knees, almost cradling Darlington in her arms. 

“What the hell, Darlington?” 

His already-pale face was corpse-like. Strands of dark hair clung to his forehead, glistening with sweat. “I assure you I’m fine, Stern.”

“Bullshit.” Alex didn’t doubt that Darlington would assure her he was fine if he had a knife buried in his chest, right up until the moment he bled out. He was infuriatingly noble like that. 

She pulled out her phone, called a car, and fired off a quick text to Dawes. _Ritual completed w/o incident. Dante ill, heading back to HQ._

Alex turned her attention back to Darlington, who appeared to be falling in and out of consciousness. Whatever was ailing him, it clearly wasn’t a normal illness. Alex replayed the nights’ events in her mind, searching for something, anything that could have gone amiss during the ritual and caused this. 

“Ritual was fine…” Darlington, said, breathing heavily, as if he could read her mind. “It’s just the Elixir.” 

Then he was silent. 

_It’s just the Elixir._ Just the poison Darlington willingly ingested before rituals so that he could see the world as Alex always did. The foul liquid that he always spoke of with the same combination of reverence and loathing that Alex had heard many addicts use.

Dawes kept calling, but Alex didn’t pick up. There was no way she was explaining this situation over the phone.

Where the _fuck_ was the car?  
˗  
When they stepped through the door, Darlington’s head lolling against Alex’s shoulder, Il Bastone emitted a sound somewhere between a groan and a screech. Even the house was worried for Lethe’s golden boy. 

Dawes fussed and clucked over Darlington, taking his temperature and forcing him to drink a glass of some concoction. She and Alex half-supported, half-dragged Darlington up the stairs to Virgil’s room, where he promptly fell into bed. 

The two women stood there in awkward silence, not sure what to do now that the person who usually bridged the gaps in their conversation was unconscious.  
“He should be better after the draught and rest.” Dawes was worrying her bottom lip, her gaze darting to the doorway.

“I can stay with him.” Alex said. 

Dawes hesitated, then nodded, gratitude visible in her eyes. She retreated to her thesis, while Alex pulled up a chair and settled in at Darlington’s beside. 

He was disarmingly vulnerable in his sleep. The poise and urbanity that Darlington always wore like others might don a coat was gone, leaving him looking very young.  
Alex remembered the story he had told her, about trying to brew Hiram’s Bullet for himself and waking up in the hospital, hemorrhaging blood. She tried, not for the first time, to imagine the kind of desperate, yawning hunger for knowledge that drove him to such lengths.

Darlington might act the part of responsible, rule-following Virgil, but Alex knew the truth of him. Daniel Arlington would run right into Hell if he thought he could find the answers he sought there. He would keep taking the Elixir, no matter the cost. 

To him or to her. 

Alex knew that she should find some way to keep herself usefully occupied, maybe get a book from the library, but she could not tear her gaze away from Darlington’s rising chest, his pale face. 

She didn’t make a conscious choice to start singing. The words to one of her grandmother’s ladino lullabies just poured out of her mouth, her voice soft and low.  
Alex sang to Darlington for a few minutes, cycling through each of the songs she could remember. It was ridiculous, really. She would have been mortified if Dawes had walked in on her. But the songs steadied her nerves, gave her courage, much in the same way death words did. 

Darlington’s eyelids flickered, and Alex abruptly quit singing, her cheeks hot. 

“Stern?” His voice was faint, too faint. 

“You owe me a thank you for dragging your ass back to Il Bastone.” Alex was too relieved for her tone to have any real bite to it.

“Ah… sorry about that.” Darlington did look embarrassed. Alex couldn’t imagine he liked being vulnerable any more than she did. “Did Pammie give me a healing draught?” 

Alex nodded. “Feeling any better?” 

“Somewhat.” He shrugged, an unfairly elegant gesture, even now. “Hiram’s Bullet was bound to catch up to me eventually.”

“You’re killing yourself.” Alex hated the naked worry in her voice. Darlington couldn’t die, not when she still had so much to learn. Not when he was the closest thing Alex had to a lifeline in the dark, tumultuous sea Sandow and Lethe had tossed her face-first into. 

“Gradual decay is the price for seeing beyond the Veil. We can’t—” Darlington stopped abruptly himself abruptly, uncharacteristically flushed, but Alex knew exactly what he had been about to say. _We can’t all be like you._

He tried to conceal it beneath in his usual careful politeness, but Alex could always sense Darlington’s resentment when she spoke about seeing Greys. He had spent his entire life chasing the extraordinary, but Alex had been born to it. 

God, Alex was sick and tired of being surrounded by people who looked down their noses at her, who thought she was undeserving. She was sick and tired of being blamed for things she couldn’t control. 

“You want this curse? Want to spend your life chased by ghosts?” She snarled “Be my guest.” 

She left before Darlington could retort, slamming the door shut behind her.  
˗  
By that point it was too late for Alex to go back to Vanderbilt, so she changed into the Lethe sweats Dawes offered her and spent what little was left of the night tossing and turning in Dante’s bedroom.

Alex couldn’t even appreciate the queen size mattress or silk sheets beneath her. Her thoughts were consumed by the look in Darlington’s eyes before she’d left— resentment and hurt and maybe even longing all tangled up there. 

She woke groggy-eyed and heavy-limbed the next morning, hours after her first class. Alex groaned and forced herself out of bed, trying not to think of how much further behind this put in school. 

A knock sounded at Alex’s door. “Come in,” she said, assuming it was Dawes. 

It was Darlington. He was still pale, still drawn, but he looked considerably better rested and was clearly steadier on his feet. 

“I owe you an apology, Stern.” His voice was heavy with gravitas. This was the Gentleman of the Lethe, honor bound to apologize, to make amends with her somehow.  
Alex remembered the night after her first Aurelian ritual, when she had shouted at him and something had shifted in Darlington’s expression, as if he were seeing her for the first time. How had flung open Il Bastone’s kitchen cabinets, offered her rows of fine crystal and China. 

_Would it help to break something else?_

She knew part of Darlington still resented her for what she could do, that he didn’t really have any idea who she was. But that wouldn’t stop him from trying to be fairer, do better. He was infuriatingly noble like that. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex said with a studied carelessness. 

He nodded, hesitated. “I meant to tell you earlier, you handled the Aurelian ritual very well.” 

“Thanks. I learned from the best.” A warm flicker of pride kindled somewhere in Alex’s chest. _**Easy**_ she cautioned herself. She wasn’t Lauren or Mercy, and Darlington wasn’t some roommate’s handsome cousin. 

Darlington smiled, and Alex had to mentally kick herself all over again. “Dawes is making breakfast. Will you join us?” 

“Yeah, okay.” Really, Alex would have skipped her next class for the dining hall anyways. “My paper on _Gravity’s Rainbow_ was already late.”

Darlington shook his head. “I always found Pynchon snobbish.” 

“You would know,” Alex rolled her eyes, but a grip was tugging at her lips. It felt good to snipe at one another like this, easy and comfortable.  
Darlington turned to head downstairs, and she followed.


End file.
